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A local energy industry researcher says, despite both praise and criticism of President Joe Biden’s executive order banning offshore drilling in huge swaths off much of the nation’s coastline, the measure will likely have no near-term impact on oil and gas exploration, Louisiana Illuminator reports.
President-elect Donald Trump issued a similar ban five years ago, and Biden’s action on Monday expands on it. The president signed two memoranda to permanently ban offshore drilling over more than 625 million acres of ocean. The order is an effort to advance his commitment to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, a White House statement said.
The prohibition applies to future oil and gas drilling off the entire East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the remaining portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea where drilling was still permitted. The areas haven’t attracted much drilling interest to begin with and were already subject to similar though less sweeping restrictions.
LSU professor David Dismukes, an energy sector economist, said he expects nothing of real significance to come out of Biden’s decision.
“It’d take decades to get the eastern [Gulf of Mexico] and Atlantic and parts of Alaska into position for drilling, particularly anything remotely like what we see in the central and western [Gulf of Mexico],” Dismukes says.
